UBB.threads Forums Uniform & Accessories Medals & Badges of the Third Reich Forum Show your Erkennungsmarken

Howdy folks,

here are some of my dog tags...I'm not an expert in these things however I like the history that's behind it AND the fact that these were worn by a German soldier during WWII. The ability to trace the unit (mentioned on the dog tag) is also fascinating.

My dog tags are not taken out of graves or from dead soldiers. I have absolutley no respect for grave robbers and treasure hunters that loot graves and sell the found objects for hard cash.

I will try to get more pics on here..just have to resize them a bit..

Show me your Erkennungsmarken!

Gerry

Gerry:

I only have one.

This came with the owner's dagger and some insignia.

John

Very nice piece John!

It came with shoulder boards, dagger, hangers and a collection of pictures.

The rest I added based on the researched name.

John

some nice tags here.... I had a gigantic collection years ago. Most now sadly gone kept a few of the really good ones [SS]...

In the 90s there were so may fakes made the right way I just stopped with them.

Complete tags usually are not from a grave yard but from a battle field. Half tags with the 2 holes sometimes can be from graves....

One of my favorite SS tags,,SS VT Germania,,,and a French tag:

That's some nice stuff you got there Gaspare

thank you... Heres a couple more rare ones:

a couple rare SS tags..

after SuperStorm Sandy my tag collection was strewn out over 4 of my neighbors yards! People thought I was nuts on my hands and knees in the muck looking for them! Found most,,about 15 of my keepers out with the tide,,,but found some of my very best and no worse the wear!

another 2 rare SS tags.. These are embossed tags. That is,,made by stamping from the reverse! An experiment that I guess didn't work!

Awesome pieces Gaspare! I live the SS Wiking one... I bet you paid a fortune for that. ..

I'm waiting for my NSKK and Heavy FLAK dog tags to arrive. I still need to figure out how I can resize pictures to put em up here.

Panzer:

Here is a website that can help you resize your pictures:

http://www.wwiirelics.com/photoresizer/shrinkimage.php

John

Thx John! Appreciate the help!

PF , believe it or not I paid very little for some of them. My wifes cousins were diggers in Ukraine 1991 to 98. We went every year [still do]..Some I got just for helping them for the day. Trading stuff they couldn't get etc.

The SS Wiking tags I had 5 or 6 including a consecutively numbered pair! Those are gone,,lost one in the flood,,have just the one now..

Always wanted a NSKK tag!,,when you get it would love to see it...

Here are a few more of my erkennungsmarkem.

Heavy FLAK

NSKK Transportgruppe Todt (Still need to clean this one)

Schutzen Ersatz Bat. (Mot)

Thx again John for that link to resize pics!

G

Gaspare, I will clean my NSKK dog tag and then repost a picture. I got the NSKK one from Estonia for a pretty low price. Normally I wouldn't buy these type of tags however I thought NSKK looks pretty interesting (especially when it says Transportgruppe Todt).
My favorite one is the Heavy Flak dog tag. For this one I was able to get the entire history of this unit through the Lexikon Der Wehrmacht.

Man that must be hard losing them Wiking dog tags.... but the most important thing of all is that you and yer family are safe.

I'll keep you posted!

G

here is my lone contribution,,,

Nice Luftwaffe Ekm Militarymania. Besides collecting daggers and helmets the Erkennunsmarken are my other favorite collectables.

yes, some nice tags shown here! , How are you cleaning them?

I have a special metal cleaner/polish at home that I bought 12 years ago.... It's a white liquid that won't damage the metal however I forgot the name of it. I'll check the name when I get home.

Here is a Railway Police tag that came with a uniform. I really don't know much about these and what information the markings indicate.

Nice uniform! I can't "translate" the dog tag... I'll do some more research. I believe there's a list of all the abbreviations however I still need to find it...

Maybe BZP translates to "Bahnschutzpolizei"? After all it's the railwaypolice...

ORPO,, if that's what it is that's a really rare tag!


I usually just use warm water and a stiff brush.. I've used a glass beading cabinet with great effect but the tag looks new.

I've heard all sorts of ways to clean them,,using denture cleaning tablets, steel wool,,even mild acid wipe!

Thanks guys. I was thinking it was an abreviation for Bahnschutzpolizei or perhaps a railway Bezerk. Clearly the "2" on the sewn in shoulder boards matches the Abteilung 2 mark on the tag.

The Bahnschutz seemed to march to their own drummer and used their own place designations. The dark blue uniform was worn while serving within the Greater German Reich while the light blue uniform was worn in occupied areas if that helps.

nice uniform and tag Orpo...

Great Thread. This thread got me looking through some of my old manuals. One is a manual put together by the US Army in 1942 for POW interrogators. Last updated in June 1945, it lists the unit abbreviations used in the Soldbuck and WehrPass, and on the Erkennungs. Most of you probably already have a copy but I scanned and formatted it, and put it in the GDC Reference Library. You can see it HERE!

yes I had one but went out with the tide!

Big thanks for putting that up Vern. Excellent for reading tags. I'll find some more tags and get them up here for reference.....

Thx for posting this document Vern! I had the complete list but I misplaced it...

Glad to help out. If you think of anything else that would be useful, let me know and I'll see if I can find it. Many of the reference files have been submitted/requested by our fellow collectors and dealers. It's an easy way to advance the hobby and provide a quick source of information for everyone

Construction and Stamping:

Tags were made of several materials, depending on what period of the war they were issued and who issued them.  The earliest tags were made of aluminum, and this material appears to have been common until perhaps 1941 or 1942, when zinc began to become more common.  Zinc remained the material of choice until war's end, even though steel superseded it in some high-volume replacement units during the late summer and fall of 1944.  As you would expect, the use of various materials saw considerable overlapping, with some aluminum tags being issued as late as 1943, especially amongst specialist replacement units or field outfits which would not issue enough tags to have to replace their stocks with tags of a newer material.

The actual shape of the tags also varied, with the oval shape ranging from almost round to almost pointed.  One late-war field-unit tag from Gebirgs Artillerie Regt. 1057 has a series of holes in lieu of the typical three long slots to aid in breaking the tag in half.

There are two variations in the orientation of the stampings, depending on who issued the tag.  For some reason, Ersatzunits and many "zone of the interior" units usually stamped their tags so that the bottom of the inscription of each half faced the axial perforations.  In other words, no matter which way you look at one of these tags, one of the inscriptions will be right-side-up and the other will be upside-down.  Field units generally stamped their tags so that both inscriptions are right-side-up when the tag is held with the two neck-cord suspension holes are at the top.  These orientations are not rules, however, they are tendencies; there are sure to be exceptions!

The actual type of stamping also varied.  A few tags are stamped completely in capital letters, but most are stamped in a combination of capitals & lower case letters.  The earlier tags also tended to use larger-sized letters.  Some tags used scribed-in guide lines to help stamp the letters in a straight line, and some do not.  One tag examined still bears pencilmarks as guide lines.

According to Wehrmacht regulations, the actualstamping was carried out in a unit's Waffenmeisterei (ordnance section).  In fact, the first tag issued by Füs.Kp.V.Gren.Div.272 (Serial #1), was worn by Heinrich Dietz, the Waffenmeister himself!

Blank tags were requisitioned via battalion from the Bekleidungsanforderungs-Dienstwege (clothing requests channels).

The regs also stated that the unit name be stamped above the serial number, but the shape of the tag leaves more room at the center of the tag for the long unit names; it seems that it was more common to stamp the number above the unit name, especially in the "mirrored" inscriptions of the Ersatz unit tags.

The addition of a blood-type stamp appears to have been a mid-war development, and may have been done by the field units themselves.  Army dogtag regulations of September, 1942, make no mention of blood-type stamps, so they are presumably of a later date.  In addition, close examination of a number of dogtags from FK272 show markings made by the same stamp, even though the tags originated from different Ersatz units!  This would indicate that the blood-type letters on these tags were stamped by FK272 when the soldiers arrived.  Late-war tags without blood-type letters on them may have belonged to soldiers who were not yet assigned to a front-line unit or they may have been souvenired from stocks of unissued tags.

If a man was discharged, the regulations specified that his tag was to be turned in and the inscription struck out so that it could not be reused.  The defaced tag was then turned in for scrap.

The regulations also stated that alterations were never to be made to any tag.  The tag illustrated as example 2, below, shows that this regulation was no more sacred than any other.  Altered tags are rare, however.

Maybe we should create a document about the different fonts that they used on the Erkennungsmarken....

I found a site called Der Erste Zug which has lots of info on Erkennungsmarken. Here is a part of their info on Erkennungsmarken (source Der Erste Zug):

I've had a couple tag books over the years. One thing I've learned,,the more rules, regulations, etc. you read about tags,,the more you'll see the exceptions..

1939,,there were just as many zinc tags as AL. Steel tags?, really rare to see!

Big holes, tag shapes, blood groups, fonts, they are all over the place from every year of the war..

Nicest finds are the matching soldbuch with ID tag!

Recently I found a book for sale online about Erkennungsmarken but it was not cheap at all. Understandable as the author(s) put lots of work and research in them...

Yeah Gaspare, I hear ya my friend.... an EKM with matching papers that would be awesome to have in a collection.

Found this one for sale recently but I wasn't 100% sure about this one so I didn't buy it. The Erkennungsmarke translates:

Geschütz Batterie, Leichte Ausbildungs Ersatz und Aufklärungs Abteilung 102

I'm not sure if the Germans used the "&" symbol on their dog tags. Has anyone seen this symbol before on an Erkennungsmarke?

In the list, there is one abbreviation with an "&". The others use "u" for "und".

for a tag,,don't think a '&' is good.... I have been out of tags for years.. 2 best guys are on WAF and their handles are 'Fronti' and Mr.Dog Tag. They will know for sure 100%.

Found a few more,,some really rare tags!

Added a few examples to the "Erkennungs Unit Abbreviations" reference

Thx Vern.

In the mean time I'm still trying to clean my NSKK dog tag. It's not an easy job...

When you show it, how about some tips on cleaning. Is it like this one?

No mine is not like yours at all. It has the regimental number on top and on the second line it says " NSKK Transportgruppe Todt".

I'll take another pic of it and post it asap.